Hidden away in the story of Moses is this weird stick-snake parable. The highlights of the story are these: A Hebrew baby is rescued by the Egyptian princess. He is raised in Pharaoh’s palace and enjoys a privileged life. But he is sensitive to the pain and injustice visited upon the Hebrews and in a fit of rage murders an overseer. He flees from all he has known and goes to the desert.
In Midian, things go extremely well. He meets a beautiful girl, falls in love and is married. He has a steady job and is indespensible to his father-in-law. Moses had it made. He had love, marriage, family, and security.
But it is all an illusion. God and Moses’s past keep after him. As a shepherd, Moses has a lot of time to think. He remembers his people in slavery, and contrasts that memory to his own placid lifestyle. And then, remembering the pain of the Hebrew’s, Moses prays, “Would God some leader could arise to bring them relief, escape, freedom!” As is often the case, Moses discovers that he is the answer to his own prayer. God says “Come Moses. I will send you!”
What a challenge! Moses is filled with an almost overwhelming sense of personal responsibility. Why should he not be the one to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. He is perfectly qualified. He has an inside knowledge of Egyptian politics, raised in the palace itself. He has contacts, ability, a profound sympathy for the plight of his people. Does he dare to do this thing?
But running counter to this are floods of doubts, fears, excuses. God has no more than spoken than Moses responds “Why me?” He is suddenly writhing with objections. He’s not an orator. Nor would the Hebrews trust him. He was raised Egyptian after all. He led a privileged life. But the Egyptians wouldn’t trust him either, he’d killed one of them already. Which made him a wanted man—a murderer—a wanted man.
A critical moment has come to Moses. It cannot be avoided. No matter how he tries to thrust it from his mind, God is constantly answering his objections with assurances. And finally, as much an expression of his own doubts as an expectation of other’s, Moses says “Who will believe me? They will say, The Lord hath not appeared to thee.” Like many of us who hear God’s call, Moses wants to be sure he isn’t imagining it all.
Then God tells Moses to cast down his rod. Moses obeys and the rod becomes a serpent, writhing on the ground, the very symbol of Moses’ own objections, doubts, and worries. It is everything that makes Moses want to run in panic. Then God says “Put out your hand, Moses, and take the serpent by the tail.”